ArmInfo.On August 21, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave an order to turn another long-standing Christian shrine, which in recent years had the status of a museum, into a mosque, Hurriyet Daily News reports.
This is the Kariye Museum, established in 1948 in the building of the Church of Christ the Savior or the Church of Chora.
The decision to turn the Kariye Museum into a mosque came just a month after the equally controversial transformation of Istanbul's Hagia Sophia.
The history of this ancient building accurately reflects the history of the Hagia Sophia. Chora Church was a medieval Byzantine temple with 14th century frescoes. Half a century after the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire in 1453, it was transformed into the Kariye Mosque.
After World War II, the mosque became the Kariye Museum. A group of American art historians helped restore the original church mosaics and opened them to the public in 1958. Turkey's Supreme Administrative Court approved the conversion of the museum into a mosque in November.